Chapter Text
Mario and Vivian exit the west side shop, having just received train tickets to the Excess Express thanks to Don Pianta. It took a bit of backtracking over to Keelhaul Key, but it was all worth it in the end. Besides, Cortez didn’t seem to mind that the party had to haul their butts back and forth so soon.
“How nice! Now we can go to Poshley Heights, right?” Vivian asks.
True enough, Mario nods excitedly. That’s where the next Crystal Star was supposed to be. Getting all of them, stopping the X-Nauts, and rescuing Peach were his main goal.
“Mwee hee hee hee hee hee! I heard that, my uglies! So the sixth Crystal Star is in Poshley Heights, is it? That’s a rather nice piece of information!”
Mario and Vivian are startled by the familiar laugh and appearance of Beldam, who emerges from the filthy sidewalk.
“Thanks ever so!”
“Eep!” Vivian squeals, instinctively hiding behind Mario. “Beldam!”
Remembering how poorly Vivian had been treated by her older yet shorter sister, Mario furrows his brow, taking out his hammer.
“Normally this would be where I finally deal with you and that homely traitor, but something tells me that trying that alone might be unwise.” Beldam could see the look in Mario’s eyes, and she was more than aware that on her own, she was the weakest of the Shadow Sirens. “You’ll live, for now. I’ll just beat you to Poshley Heights and get that Crystal Star before you do!”
With another wicked laugh, Beldam disappears back into the ground.
“Mario, she’s serious! We need to get to Poshley Heights before her! Let’s hurry!”
Though Mario wasn’t exactly sure how someone like Beldam would catch up without using the train, he followed Vivian’s word, hopping on the small Yoshi child in order to make a faster pace.
They make it to the station, the train sitting there, a Toad standing out front.
“All aboard, Excess Express! Last call! Bound for the luxurious Poshley Heights!” He then sees Mario. “Good morning, sir! Will you and your companions be boarding today?”
Mario nods, holding out his ticket. The rest of the party members have their own as well.
“Wonderful!” The Toad checks it, giving it a small stamp. “You’ll be in cabin number five! Watch your step please, and enjoy the ride!” The Toad slides the door open for Mario, allowing him inside.
Just before he can go through, however–
“WAAAAAAAAAIT!”
Mario and everyone else within a wide radius are stopped by a loud shout. Something– or rather, someone– came flying from above, nearly crashing into the train, and subsequently, Mario.
“I’m not too late, am I!?”
Dazed, Mario lets out a small yell before shaking his head and getting a look at the one responsible for smacking into him so hard.
“Hey! Watch where you’re going, you big bug!” The Yoshi child, Mini, yells.
After his head stops spinning, Mario can see that the panicked passenger is in fact, a Bzaap! An enemy he hadn’t seen ever since his last adventure. A tall creature that resembled a bee, having black hair, wearing a backwards cap and a tattered skirt.
“Sorry, I’m sorry!” The Bzzap apologizes. “I didn’t see where I was going, I’m not exactly good at flying– wait… are you, Mario!?”
“His name is Gonzales!” Mini spits.
“Oh golly gosh, I’m so sorry for smacking into you like that, Mario! Are you boarding too?” She completely ignores the small Yoshi.
Mario awkwardly nods, while the Bzzap digs out a ticket of her own.
“What luck! I’m going to be boarding too!” She gets her ticket stamped by the Toad, who also appears frazzled by the sudden interaction. “Uh, my name is Hudson! It’s so great to finally meet the Mario, like wow!”
“You’ll be in cabin number four,” the Toad hands her back her ticket.
“Thank you!” Hudson turns around as she boards the train. “Hopefully I’ll see you soon, Mario! Feel free to come talk to me!”
They wait for her before getting on the train themselves.
“What a weirdo,” Mini mumbles.
Once Mario and his party enter their cabin room, the party all gets comfortable. Well, as comfortable as they could be.
Koops was already having motion sickness, so Goombella had to bring him a Tasty Tonic, and Ms. Mowz was prowling through the entire train in hopes of finding any lost badges she could swipe and bring back to Mario. Flurrie, exhausted after the back-and-forth traveling from earlier, decided to take a nap.
“This is really nice!” Vivian admits.
“This is so deluxe, man!” Mini added.
“Rather posh, I must say,” Admiral Bobbery grumbles. “The three days to Poshley Heights ought to pass in an eyeblink– hm?” He averts his gaze, seeing a sheet of paper on the floor. “How did that get there?”
“I don’t think it was there when we came in,” Vivian scoops it up.
‘Don’t go to Poshley Heights! Get off the train now, or a sticky, yummy doom awaits it!’
“What an odd threat, eh? You don’t think that Beldam crone is responsible for this, do you?” Bobbery wonders.
“The wording sure is weird, and my sister is a weird one…”
Mini, however, ponders it.
“Sticky, yummy, weird…? Hey! Didn’t a weird honey bee just board at the same time as us!?” Mini’s expression grows stern. “Honey is sticky and yummy, and she was strange, so I bet she had something to do with this! Let’s go get that nut!”
Goombella finishes tending to Koops’ motion sickness episode, rejoining the group. “We can’t just jump to conclusions like that, though, I suppose we could pay her a visit and ask about it.”
Exiting their cabin, Mario and Goombella take the initiative, knocking before going into the cabin directly next to theirs. There, the two of them see the Bzzap typing away on her Mailbox SP, blowing bubblegum as she does so, only alerted to the noise of the door opening.
Goombella is quick to tattle her, prying for information on the bee. “This is Hudson, a writer for popular TV shows! I can’t tell if she’s incognito or if she always dresses like… well… the backwards baseball cap and tattered skirt are a bit dated, right?”
Mario totally gets where Goombella is coming from.
“Oh! Mario!” Hudson perks up when the hero finally speaks to her. “Sorry, I kind of get spooked by the sound of doors and windows opening. I dunno why. Is there something you wanted from me?”
Goombella notes how skittish she is. “We got a threatening note, telling us that a yummy, sticky doom awaits us. Since you’re a Bzzap, you wouldn’t happen to know anything about it, right? Or have you seen any shady, shadowy witches on board?”
Hudson naturally flinches. “Yummy and sticky? Like honey? Well, I carried Honey Candies with me as a snack, but other than that? Goodness no! I wouldn’t… as for witches, I haven’t seen anything like that either.” She clears her throat. “Do you mind if I take a look at that note?”
“Uh… sure?”
Goombella reluctantly hands it to her.
“Magazine cutouts. This person wanted to avoid being recognized.” Hudson mutters. “This is going to sound a bit weird, but while I was returning to my cabin from a bathroom break, I saw Zip Toad lurking outside your room.”
“Whoa, wait, what!?” Goombella exclaims. “Zip Toad, the movie star!?”
“Yeah,” Hudson stammers, “he’s on this ride. He’s a colleague, sort of? He’s acted in some of the films I penned. I would like to get him full-time for a TV series one day, but something was definitely off. He didn’t recognize me and said, ‘yeah, I’ll sign autographs for cute chicks’, then left.”
Goombella pouts. “You’re not that cute.”
“I know I’m not!” Hudson agrees, much to Goombella’s surprise. “I don’t think he’s ever said that to me before. I tried to discuss future projects, but he was quick to return to his cabin after I bumped into him. I’m wondering if it’s an impersonator who wants a free ride.”
Impersonator?
“If you’re so suspicious of him, maybe we should ask him if he knows anything about the note,” Goombella suggests.
“Can I come with you?” Hudson asks sheepishly, getting out of her seat and closing her Mailbox SP. “Something about this really isn’t sitting right with me.”
“Uh, okay?”
Perhaps Goombella and Mario should have been used to this by now, considering the Punis and Flavio had forced themselves to tag along in the past. Hell, she wasn’t even pompously annoying like Flavio either, so it should be fine.
They go to the next car and enter the cabin labeled number one, inside is a Toad with blonde hair and sunglasses. “Oh man, it really is him!” Goombella says. “That's Zip Toad, the movie star! Women go nuts for him! Y'know, he's hot and all, but he seems pretty stuck up about being famous. I guess all celebrities are kinda like that. It's too bad, 'cause I kinda liked him.”
Hudson fidgets, holding up the threatening note. “Zip Toad? Do you recognize this?” She asks.
“Huh? What’s that? You brought some paper for me to write an autograph–”
“Zip Toad, you were lurking around Mario’s cabin earlier, and this note is what he found after you did so.” Hudson cuts Zip Toad off. “Is something going on? You don’t even recognize me.”
“What are you talking about, sweetheart?” Zip Toad replies, sweating a bit nervously. “I know you! You’re… uh… anyway! I don’t recognize that note! I’ve been too busy practicing for my shoot in Poshley Heights!”
Hudson puffs her cheeks in annoyance. “Okay, well, I’m guessing that means you want your role cut out of your next film? Due to be filmed in Toad Town? And not Poshley Heights?”
“Wha–?”
She then takes out an entire script for the next film, ‘On Golden Toad 2’.
“Look, what are you trying to peg me here for, lady!?” Zip Toad stammers. “I have a bad memory, alright? Can’t keep track of all my gigs! And I don’t recognize that note!”
Hudson stands her ground, while Goombella and Mario take the chance to raid the drawer next to his bed. Inside, are a variety of glossy magazines and postcards with Zip Toad’s image. However, buried underneath the glossies, is a pair of scissors, and examining the pages, Mario can see various letters have been cut out.
“Huh?” Goombella takes the note back, holding it next to the magazine. “Hey, the type fonts here match with the ‘Y’ in ‘yummy’! It really was you, wasn’t it!?”
“Wha–!?” Zip Toad starts to panic, tugging at his collar. “Anyone could have come into my room and torn my glossies, slick!”
…
Mario stares at ‘Zip Toad’, readying his hammer–
“Uh oh.”
“It’s Doopliss!” Goombella gasps.
Almost immediately, the Toad switches to his true form, that of a Duplighost wearing a silly hat. Mario and Goombella start chasing him around, with Hudson making sure to block the door, preventing his escape. Eventually, Doopliss sees there’s no other escape than–
Throwing himself out the window of the moving train.
“That… that didn’t look good,” Hudson mutters. “Do you know that guy?”
The rest of the train ride was relatively normal after that. A pot of stew went missing, a penguin confused Mario for Luigi, and Bub wanted an autograph from the train’s engineer, but that was about it for the day. No one heard from Hudson afterward, save when Mario and the others saw her walking with an old, dusty journal that didn’t look like it belonged to her.
Perhaps everything will be smooth sailing from here. Mario turns in for the night, hoping there won’t be any further chaos.
If Beldam tried to show herself, she’d be in for a world of hurt.